Then she got it.
She was missing something – and so was Oscar.
“His father!” Adelia said.
The Countess nodded. She was smiling. It was just a game to her now and Adelia could see that she’d get no more clues from her.
Adelia said, “I’m not the only matchmaker, am I? But I suspect I am a better one than you.”
The Countess’s smile faded into a frown. “The match would have been perfect but Jacob Brodie allowed himself to become a weak man, and Katharine did not bring him to heel as she ought to have done. I was paying for our family’s sins and surely, that meant the marriage ought to have gone well and wiped the slate of our family’s sins clean. Yet he ruined it and she didn’t stop him.”
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions, Adelia thought sourly. With enough time and a bit of creative rethinking, we can remodel our pasts into the strangest shapes just to avoid guilt and regret.
Captain Everard and Doctor Netherfield were now both hopelessly lost as they did not know all of the details of the family that Adelia and Theodore had worked out. Adelia felt it was time to lay it all out, and by watching The Countess’s reactions, she would be able to judge how close she was to getting to the truth. Captain Everard was struggling in particular, and he said, “But how does this tie in with Brodie? Lady Calaway, I respect you very much but you cannot be suggesting that The Countess has anything to do with the murders that have happened recently? We are asking her for information to unearth the past, but I want to be very clear indeed that we are not laying any blame at her door.”
Of course, he was a gentleman, and polite, and well-mannered. Adelia had so little respect for The Countess by this point that she’d be half-tempted to turn the woman out of doors in a snowstorm, but she could hardly express that view openly. One had to seem as if one were nice and pleasant, even when one didn’t feel that way at all.
Adelia said, “Lady Katharine is Percy, Lord Buckshaw’s older sister. When their father died, Percy would have been in his twenties?”
The Countess remained impassive now, giving no hint. Lady Agnes nodded. Reluctantly, she said, “Yes. My dear brother – Percy and Katharine’s father – died young and Percy was only twenty years old. Katharine was older but unmarried. I don’t think that Percy really knew about the family history and he didn’t know about the rise and fall of the family fortunes.”
“That’s right, he did not know. I took care to shield him from it all. I thought it was unfair that he should inherit the problems that his father had caused. So I set about putting it right,” The Countess said.
“How?” Captain Everard said.
“Marriage,” Adelia replied, watching The Countess. “You married Lady Katharine off to a commoner, a man with no title, and with no actual money either – Jacob Brodie.”
The Countess blinked slowly. Lady Agnes nodded.
“But Jacob Brodie was a scoundrel and a drunkard and it was almost inevitable that he was killed in a tavern brawl. And the marriage happened after the 1820s, many years later. Lady Buckshaw, why are there gaps in the finances? Why did you choose Brodie, of all people? Other men had far more money than he did, and plenty would have been willing to marry Lady Katharine.” Adelia narrowed her eyes. “You are not a terrible matchmaker. You would not have chosen this man unless there was some other reason. Something compelled you.”
“I have only ever been compelled to do what is right.”
“We all believe we are acting for the best but sometimes the outcomes are bad, regardless of our intentions.”
Theodore had been thinking deeply. He said, “How did the family recover its fortunes after the collapse of its trade decades before? Real, fake, it didn’t matter but something happened. The answer lies in the missing records. Are they hidden in the ice house?”
That made The Countess laugh. “No, I burned everything as soon as I could. You may search as deep as you like, but you will find nothing that will incriminate...” and then she stopped. She had said too much and she was obviously cursing herself for allowing herself to be drawn out.
It was enough for Adelia. She could not suppress her own brief grin. “There is incrimination to be laid at the feet of the family and I would wager that some crime was committed back in the twenties or thirties, a business deal or a theft or a fraud of some kind. Something happened to benefit the Lords of Buckshaw and restore their finances. But money has to come from somewhere. It’s a balance, a set of scales. Your family’s gain was another’s loss, was it not? Another family suffered a great deal while you profited from illegality.”
The Countess blinked again, slowly. Now, even Lady Agnes was looking confused. “Mother? You have not told me everything, have you?”
“I have protected you as I have protected everyone. And I will continue to do so. This charade is over!” She started to shuffle in her chair, preparing to stand up.
But no one came to her aid. Lady Agnes kept her hands on her mother’s shoulders, and it was enough to keep her in her chair.
“You ruined the Brodie family, years ago,” Adelia said. It was a guess. But it was a lucky one.
“I? How dare you!”
“If you are taking responsibility for the fortunes of the family now, then do so for the damaging secrets you are holding for the sake of the past,” Adelia retorted. “The Lords of Buckshaw, the Seeley-Wood family, ruined the Brodies in business. And yes, I do believe you that
